OurVictoria

Hello, Victoria enthusiasts! Because of our recent increase in followers, we thought we'd give an introduction to give you more of a sense of what we stand for:

We are a team of four undergrad students from Royal Roads University in an Innovation and Sustainability Business degree, and with Our Victoria, we are seeking ways we can deliver real social value with a business venture. As norms around business shift because of major events like pandemics and economic decline, our main objective with Our Victoria, in partnership with the Columbia Institute, is to encourage the growth of local wealth. Victoria BC already has such a booming small, local business scene, so we are actively looking to leverage our position into places that need a bit more support - we are a learning, growing venture in that regard.

Previously, we have marketed ourselves as a merchandise business with the aim to point locals and visitors to favourite locally-owned businesses in the area, but we are shifting our focus and splitting our activity into three tiers of value:

1. to be an e-commerce distributor between you (the customer) and small local businesses that might not have an online platform to sell their lovely goods
2. to promote small local artists through our Artist projects (be one of the first to support this by buying our Fireweed tees in the link in our bio!)
3. to point locals and visitors to some of our favourite local businesses, as we always have, through our features geocoordinates products

All three tiers help bolster the efforts of the Columbia Institute by sending ALL our proceeds to them.

So, how are we going to do all this? Stick around for more posts on our tiers of value. As always, thank you so much for being here and for supporting this cause!

We have been shifting our focus a bit and playing with different ideas on how we could better uplift and support those parts of our local economy that needs a bit more love. The pandemic drastically changed the way we view the local market, and Victoria has been lucky enough to see a prideful rebound in local business, but as the global economy shifts to favour more locally-focused practices, there is more we can do to go even beyond where we were pre-pandemic to support local.
One way we might do this is by supporting local artists. In Victoria, we pride ourselves in our wide range of funky, sophisticated, raw, grungy, playful, etc., etc., local artists, and there are always more things we could do to support them. By supporting them, we support the growth of our culture and our economy.
All that to say that we hope you're excited about this small first installment of this project as we are - and don't be afraid to send us some feedback when you visit our online shop!

Do you like supporting local artists?
If you're a local or Victoria enthusiast, your answer is likely an unhesitant "YES." In Victoria, we pride ourselves in our funky, unique multitude of local artists, and at Our Victoria, we view the strength of the local economy to be tied to the strength of the local artistic presence.
For this new product line, we've partnered with a local artist we know personally to provide us with these beautiful illustrations of the fireweed plant to be printed on our unisex tees, available now! With every purchase, not only are you supporting, uplifting, and sporting a local artist's design, but, as always, all proceeds will go to the Columbia Institute, whose work commits to enhancing local economies across Canada.
Also, we've been shifting our focus a bit - more on that later, so stay tuned!